


Gotta Hold Myself Down

by 8sword



Series: The Whole Romance Thing [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Charlie being an awesome aunt, Dean angsting over Emma, Dean angsting over Prom, Domestic destiel, Emma angsting over Prom, F/F, F/M, Femslash February, M/M, Pre-Femslash, basically all my favorite things, stepsisters!Claire & Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's kind of dumb, the quiet pride on Cas's face as he looks at her in the mirror, and on Dean's when they go downstairs and her dad looks up from the Moondoor map he's examining with Charlie at the table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotta Hold Myself Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vilupe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vilupe/gifts).



> This is a repost from tumblr, polished up in honor of Emma's birthday and Femslash February! (This is also partly for lookatthesefreakinghipsters, who has strong feelings about Dean and glasses. I SHARE YOUR PASSION, COMRADE.)  
> Title from Katrina & the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine."

 

 

                Prom tickets have barely been on sale two hours before some assface asks Claire to go with him. Emma doesn't find this out until after the fact--way, way after the fact, actually, when she's clumping downstairs in a Stormtrooper slipper and [a toe sock](http://www.jinx.com/p/the_hobbit_feet_socks.html?gclid=CNuP-szWqbwCFZRr7AodVgkAug) one Saturday morning, still in her pajamas, and Claire's crossing through the dining room in her jeans and blue peacoat, Cas's keys dangling from her fingers.

                Emma stops on the third stair from the bottom. She rubs her eyes with one hand. "Where're you going?"

                "Mall." Claire switches the keys to her other hand. "You wanna come?"

                Mall plus Saturday morning doesn't compute in Emma's head. Are malls even open before noon on Saturdays? "Ungh," she says unintelligibly, and trudges past Claire into the kitchen, where Dean and Cas are at the table, as bed-headed and bleary-eyed as her.

                It's not until half an hour later, when she's slurping the last of the Cinnamon-Toast-Crunch-flavored milk from her bowl and Dean's scowling at the Saturday crossword, studiously ignoring the black-framed plastic reading glasses Cas pushes across the table toward him, that it hits her.

                "Hey, wait. Claire went to the mall?"

                "Apparently." Cas turns the page of the local section.

                Dean squints at the clock. "Is the mall even open at nine a.m.?"

                "Right?" Emma says.

                Cas turns another page. "The department stores are." He pulls out the page that has Dear Abby on it and slides it to Emma. "I believe she is looking for a dress and shoes."

                Emma and Dean squint at each other. Then:

                "Oh, hell no!" Emma says.

                "What's she need a dress for?" Dean says.

                Cas sighs at both of them and takes his section of the newspaper into the living room.

                Dean looks at Emma. He's finally given in and put the glasses on; his eyes are magnified and owlish behind the lenses. "Am I missing something?"

                Emma makes a face at him. Then she throws her bowl into the sink with a clatter and stomps upstairs.

                She doesn't come out of her room for the rest of the day, especially not when Claire comes home that evening with a big white garment bag and a shoebox the size of their sink.

 

\- o -

 

                Wednesday makes the third night in a row Emma doesn't slink home until two hours after they've eaten dinner. Dean's at the sink doing the dishes and sucking in a breath to chew her a new one because there are two rules in this house, Emma, two fucking rules, don't take joints from a guy named Don and be home in time for dinner, is that so much to fucking ask, but just as his lungs have expanded to full capacity, Cas's hand is curving over his arm.

                His breath pauses. He looks over. Cas looks back, brow raised.

                Dean exhales. Emma shoots him a half resentful, half guilty look, and slinks past them to the stairs like a mangy dog with its ribs showing. She smells like the inside of a Dunkin Donuts, all fried breakfast sandwiches and too-sweet coffee.

                "Dude," he says once she's upstairs, once they've heard her door slam shut, because that's the only way she closes her door these past few days: angrily. "We've gotta do something about this."

                Cas lets go of his arm and resumes scrubbing the dinner dishes. "And what would you suggest?"

                "I dunno, man, just--make her go to the fucking dance! Buy her a ticket or something."

                "As I understand it," Cas says, "these functions are social rites for and among one's peers. Parents' roles do not extend beyond taking photos to commemorate the night."

                Dean thinks, fleetingly, of the poster advertising a father-daughter dance he saw at JB's school when he was there picking up the little booger last week. Pushes it out of his head before it can hurt too badly.

                "Cas," he says. "She _wants_ to go. You think she would be doing all this sulking if she didn't?"

                "I think that if she wishes to go, that is a decision she must make herself," Cas says. He is silent for a moment, and then comes closer, his side a line of warmth against Dean's. "If I may ask, why do you wish her to go so badly?"

                Dean's lips twist. He picks up another plate, starts to scrub it. "I just know if she doesn't go, she's gonna regret it."

                Cas does the quiet thing again. "Do you regret it?"          

                Dean snorts. Then he puts the plate in the drying rack and pulls the plug out of the sink drain. The dirty dishwater swirls down the drain in a rush of gurgles, and Dean watches it, hands curled around the edge of the counter.

                "Maybe," he says finally, and pushes away from the sink.

                Cas turns to watch Dean go into the dining room and hesitate over his phone where it's plugged into the charger. He picks it up. Wanders into the living room, and a moment later, Cas hears, "Hey, Your Highness--you busy?"

                Cas smiles.

                 

\- o -

 

                Charlie's still got her yellow Gremlin. It's splattered with mud from the road, but still appallingly bright as she pulls up in front of the house the Saturday of the prom. She rolls down her window and shouts, "GET IN THE CAR, LOSER, WE'RE GOING HUNTING!"

                Emma cackles with laughter as she clambers down the porch steps. Partly because she loves when Charlie references internet memes based on the Carver Edlund novels but also because she's relieved to get out of the house and away from all of Claire's showering and shaving and plucking for that night. "I come bearing gifts, Majesty!"

                Charlie takes the napkin-wrapped French toast sandwich from Emma. "Egg whites?"

                "Egg whites," Emma says.

                "AWESOME," Charlie says, and crams half the sandwich in her mouth as she pulls the car into reverse. "Remind me to promote Dean to Royal Chef next festival."

                Emma leans forward to shuffle through Charlie's iPod selection. "What do royal chefs wear?"

                "Heck if I know." Charlie swallows the last of her pancake sandwich, licking syrup and salt from her fingers. "Jeweled [hair nets](http://dominique-inique-inique.tumblr.com/post/75435824566/deanisanactualprincess-itsjustjensen-why-do), maybe? We'll have to keep our eyes peeled at the shop."

                They're headed to Omaha for a new cosplay specialty shop Charlie found. She called about it Wednesday night, asked if anyone wanted to head thataways with her to check out costumes for SDCC. Claire's busy, of course, and Cas roped Dean into some volunteer thing with one of his college classes, which left Emma free to say yes and get a day with Charlie all to herself, instead of having to share her with Dean and all the _Star Trek_ and _Battlestar Galactica_ references his presence entails.

                "Dude," Charlie tells her. "If you would just give it a _chance_. You'd love Uhura so much, swear to God."

                "[Swear to _me_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfFbxIHBdjo)," Emma growls, and they burst into laughter.

                It's great, until it's not, because after two and a half hours they're pulling into a parking lot and walking into the store and, um, it's a little fancy to be a cosplay shop? Emma's looking around at all the dresses and suits trying to figure out what shows they're supposed to be from, because maybe that one is one of Padmé's weird lake outfits from Episode II, but a Claire voice in her head is saying, _Stop being stupid, Emma._

                "This is a trap, isn't it."

                Her voice is flat. Charlie's smile is apologetic.

                "Good job, Admiral Ackbar?" she tries.

                Emma glares at her. "Seriously?"

                "Seriously." Charlie thrusts an armful of dresses at her. Points at the dressing room. "Go."

                Emma plants her feet. She's wearing her favorite laced-up boots. They're not dress shoes; they're not even girl shoes. They're the opposite of prom material, just like her. "No."

                Charlie pulls something out of her jacket. It's a brown napkin. It's got a green Starbucks insignia on it. And something else.

                Emma leans closer almost unwillingly to peer at it. "What is it?"

                "Oh," Charlie says. "Just Alona Tal's autograph. I was going to auction if off on eBay if nobody I knew wanted it."

                No one's supposed to know about Emma's crush on Alona Tal. So Emma's first reaction is violent denial and fire-red flushing. Her next, when Charlie just grins and waves the napkin, is stomping into the fitting room with the dresses Charlie picked out and snapping, "You better not wrinkle it!"

 

\- o -

 

                Three hours later,  Emma and Charlie are draping a dress bag carefully into the back of the Gremlin. They also have a small, stupidly delicate bag of jewelry and two huge shoes boxes containing a pair each of high-heeled Converses Charlie spotted in a display window ("Holy peanut butter and jelly, Batman! We're _both_ getting pairs of these!").

                Sitting in the passenger seat as they head back toward Sioux Falls, Emma draws her legs up into her seat. Not so much because the shoeboxes are taking up most of the foot well as because all the sick, nervous, not-good-enough feelings that Charlie's "Walking on Sunshine" medleys had shoved away are seeping back into her now. She hugs her knees and chews her lip and stares out the window.

                "I could go for some soft serve," Charlie announces after a while. She pulls off the interstate at the next exit. There's a Sonic just off the road, half the tables filled with little kids running around and spilling their slushies onto the gum-spotted concrete. 

                They take the furthest table, where an old straw wrapper is fluttering tiredly. Someone tied it around the metal meshwork of the table. Emma pushes her fingers through the mesh beside it as Charlie orders two vanilla cones and a large fry from the girl who skates up to them.

                "Did I overstep my bounds?" she asks when the girl skates away. Her eyes are big. "I overstepped my bounds. Amelia's you guys' fairy godmother aunt, I know that. Or--I should have known that. I _did_ know that, I just--thought I might be able to help more, this time."

                The waitress brings their order on a red plastic tray. Emma takes her ice cream cone but can't bring herself to start licking, the pit of her stomach too icy already. Charlie _knows_. And that might mean that Dean knows, or--

                Her fist clenches shut around the bottom of her ice cream cone. Then she jumps as cold cream seeps through her fingers.

                "Uh oh!" Charlie quickly shoves the tray forward. Most of Emma's ice cream lands on top of the fries, like chili cheese fries minus the chili and cheese and plus some soft serve. "Oh, good save." She holds her hand out to Emma for a high five, blanches when she sees Emma's hand covered in ice cream, and reaches over to get some napkins for her.

                "Looks like you just gave someone a really good handjob, huh?" she jokes as she presses the brown, unautographed napkins around Emma's hand. It feels like she's giving Emma an out, an out to pretend that what Charlie's figured out isn't true, and it makes Emma's shoulders hunch.

                "Am I that obvious?" she says quietly.

                Charlie stops trying to wipe off Emma's hand. She keeps looking down at it, though. There's a rueful curve to her mouth that Emma's never seen on her before.

                "I think I just knew where to look," she says finally. "You know what I mean?"

                Emma wants to ask, _Is that okay? Am_ I _okay?_ But she knows Charlie's answers to those questions won't necessarily be the same as Claire's, or Dean's, so she stays quiet.

                "Here's what I think," Charlie says after a minute. "Not that you asked, but. If you were a character in a movie I was watching? I would want you to get this awesome, possibly La Roux-accompanied montage of getting all blinged out and war painted up, and then pull a total Yule Ball Hermione and fucking _blow_ the socks off everyone in the room when they see you."

                She levels a limp, ice-cream dripping fry at Emma. "Then you get some pictures taken, have some crappy food with your friends, go barefoot because those high heels are going to be Mount Doom on your feet, and when you wake up tomorrow morning you'll have your own prom stories to tell Dean and Cas at the breakfast table instead of just listening to Claire's."

                Emma's quiet for another minute. Then she says, "And you too."

                Charlie looks confused as she pulls a fry out of the ice-cream-y mess, putting it in her mouth ice-cream and all. "Me too?"

                "You should stay over tonight," Emma clarifies, studiously focusing on dragging her own fry through some of the ice cream. She can feel the flush on the back of her neck. "At our house. So tomorrow I can tell you about it."

                Charlie beams. Scoots forward on the bench. "It _has_ been a while since I cockblocked your dads."

                Emma smiles.

 

\- o -

 

                When they get back to Sioux Falls, Charlie smuggles the dress inside with loud proclamations about what an awesome costume she found. Emma waits until The Boy comes and picks Claire up to get dressed, struggling to put her hair up with the jeweled clip they found until there's a soft knock on her door.

                She freezes.

                "Emma, may I come in?"

                It's Cas. Emma steals a look at her reflection, the silky green material of her dress and the clumsy job she's done of her make-up. She grabs a Kleenex and licks it, starts rubbing it off. "Yeah, just a second!"

                Cas eases the door open. Emma sees him in her mirror, stops rubbing at her eyelids when he takes one step inside, then another.

                He touches her shoulder lightly. Emma sinks into the desk chair she's pulled up to her dresser, and Cas takes the tissue from her. She closes her eyes without being told, feels him rub the eye shadow carefully away and begin re-applying it in careful, deliberate strokes. He doesn't ask any questions, doesn't speak at all as he works, until he turns her chair gently around and says, "Look?"

                She opens her eyes. Blinks at her own reflection, feels a startled sense of _Mom_. Because that's who she looks like.

                She'd forgotten how pretty her mom was. Lost it among the memories of crying and snot and bitterness.

                Cas touches her hair gently, pulls it back into the French braid he's been perfecting ever since their Disney trip so long ago. He fastens it with the clip. "Ready?"

                Emma nods.

                And it's kind of dumb, the quiet pride on Cas's face as he looks at her in the mirror, and on Dean's when they go downstairs and her dad looks up from the Moondoor map he's examining with Charlie at the table. But--

                "What?" she says, shifting back and forth in her heels. "It's just a dress."

                Dean and Charlie exchange glances. Emma glares at them both. Dean pulls off his hipster glasses and gets up, popping his spine as he knits his fingers together in an attempt to look nonchalant. "Whatever, kid, I'm just proud of you for taking a shower for once."

                "Please, you don't even own a shirt without armpit rings," Emma retorts, which gets Dean trying to pull her into a noogie with her face in one of said armpits.

                Cas puts a swift end to this by flicking Dean in the chest, what looks uncomfortably close to a sensitive area. "Are you _trying_ to ruin her hair?" he says severely.

                "Yeah, Dad, are you _trying_ to ruin my hair?" Emma mimics from over Cas's shoulder, sticking her tongue out at him.

                Dean sticks his tongue out back, petulantly massaging the flicked spot. Cas rolls his eyes. "Charlie, may we borrow your camera?"

                Charlie's brought her special Canon, the fancy one she uses at cons for cosplay photos. She hefts it in the air. "Already got it!"

                "Seriously?" Emma complains. But she doesn't pull away as Dean comes in to wrap an arm around her for the picture. Maybe she even leans a little into Cas when Dean tugs him into the photo, too.

                Charlie grins as she clicks the shutter, makes them say, "Charliiieee" instead of "cheese." Then Cas suggests that Emma and Charlie should have a photo together, so Charlie hands her camera to him and runs to go put her new matching high-heeled Converses on. She thumbs up the tip of her nose to make a pig's face, so Emma pulls down her lower eyelids, and Cas sighs as he looks at them through the viewfinder but takes the picture anyway.

                Then Charlie shouts, "Charlie's Angels!" and they do a secret agent pose, Charlie coaxing Dean to come be their third Angel in his flannel and jeans, rolling his eyes as Emma laughs her face off, pink with laughter and a little bit of how much she can't believe everything feels okay again.

 

\- o -

 

                When Emma wakes up the next morning, Claire's sitting in her desk chair. She's already showered and dressed, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Emma's face is still smeared with makeup, a great deal of which has rubbed off on her pillowcase.

                They look at each other for a moment, Claire inscrutably and Emma blearily.

                Then Claire inclines her head. It's a question, a _why didn't you tell me you were going to go_ , kept unspoken so that if Emma doesn't want to answer she doesn't have to.

                "Charlie kind of sprang it on me," Emma answers. Sits up, rubbing a hand under her eye, and looks down to see it streaked black with mascara. "Guess she wanted to role-play some bibbity-bobbity-booing."

                Claire smiles, a little. It's a strangely metallic expression.

                "We could've gone together," she says. "If I'd known you were going to come."

                "We could've." Emma kicks off her covers, swings her feet to the floor. Looks back up at Claire. "Maybe next time."

                Claire studies her a moment longer. Then she nods, too. "Next time," she says, and gets up to toss Emma her robe so they can go downstairs.

                (When she steps close, then closer, to pick up the ends of the sash and play with them as Emma pushes her arms through the sleeves, Emma doesn't catch her breath.

                She doesn't.)

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
